Another Spring, Another Season!!

The Mariner’s 2010 season is upon us!!! The M’s started the season on the road, so this year’s Home Opener was a little later. On Monday, April 12th, Mike and I headed up to Safeco Field. Mom always got after me for not getting pictures of me and those who came with me. Last season I was very good about getting the pictures, but I have already started this season off bad. I ended up not getting a picture of Mike and I. It was Mike’s first time attending a Home Opener, but I realized it was already my 9th Home Opener (this is our 9th season for our tickets too). I do have to say that this was the first year that we had issues with parking, even though we got up there about 2 hours before game time. I think everyone was coming to see Randy Johnson pitch! :-) I had to exchange some tickets too, so we ended up getting into our seats at 2:58 pm and the Pregame Ceremony was supposed to start at 3 pm. It ended up getting kicked off at 3:10 pm. A local band called “Death Cab for Cutie” started the show. I really hadn’t heard of them before, but Mike knew who they were:



After the band finished, they started the introductions of the Oakland A’s and then the M’s. Here’s the trainers, coaches, and other staff members:



Then the players were introduced as they ran down the red carpet from right field. Ichiro:



Griffey:



Before the National Anthem, we had a moment of silence for the 6 police officers that have been killed in the line of duty this winter in Seattle and Lakewood:





The big flag was held by police officers from Seattle, Lakewood, and Pierce County (I think those were the only ones):



Ichiro being given some of his awards from last season:



Every year the Mariners honor a young kid with health issues, by allowing them to run around the bases and be met at home plate by some big league ballplayers. This year, the young boy got an awesome welcome by Griffey, Felix Hernandez, and Chone Figgins:





Now for the man that we were waiting to see!!! Randy Johnson came out of centerfield and took the long walk to the pitcher’s mound:



Warming up:



Rumor had it that Dan Wilson would be there to catch for him and that Griffey may even come up to “Bat.” At least one was true:





You can’t have the two of them out on the field without some of their old teammates:





Jay Buhner, Dan Wilson (mostly hidden), Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, and Ken Griffey, Jr:





Then we finally started the game with Ryan Rowland-Smith pitching:



We are still sitting behind home plate, so I still have to contend with the net that causes issues with my auto focus camera. Here’s some of my best game shots. Ichiro:



Griffey:





I love these next two shots of Griffey. The ball went towards our right:





The Moose:



I had to take a lot of pics of Griffey, since we don’t know if this is his last season. Here’s two more of him:





The final score:



We were so bummed by the final score, but otherwise it was a great day!

If you read this blog and you know me, contact me if you want to go to any games (with or without me)!!

God’s Creation

God has created some beautiful things and also some funny things. I thought I’d just post a mix of different photos I’ve taken this winter. One night, back in October, I was watching tv and I kept hearing a frog outside the sliding door. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but after a few minutes, I went to check it out. I had to grab my camera to catch this moment. I don’t know if the frog wanted to watch tv or just come into the warm house, but he seemed to like this spot:



At the end of October, we celebrated my Great Aunt Ruth’s 90th birthday. She’s my Mom’s aunt and so Mom and all of her cousins decided that we needed to have a party for her. She never married and was a Missionary Nurse in Zaire (aka Congo), so Mom and her cousins became her “kids”. I think we had most of Mom’s cousins at the party. We even got to see her cousin Rodney and his wife, Myrna, from Montana. Mom’s cousins that live in Coupeville and run the Knead & Feed Restaurant (www.kneadandfeed.com/), did all the food for the party and one other cousin and her daughter (http://www.alexandrahedin.com/) did all of the flower arrangements. The flowers were gorgeous and I just had to get some pictures of them.

Carnations:



Rose:



In early December, we took our high school and middle school kids from our church for a weekend retreat. The mornings were cold, but Erin, Janna, and I still took an early morning walk. Thought that the frost made for some pretty cool pictures.

A frosty weed:



A branch:



A big tractor tire:



One of our snow days in December:



We usually leave our Christmas tree in the garage for a few days before bringing it into the house, but this time while it was in the garage, it ended up being some of the coldest days we’ve had in a long time. Our tree looked great all decorated:



Then we began noticing that the needles started coming off in bunches a lot earlier than normal. It might be hard to see all the needles off in this picture:



While taking the ornaments off the tree, I kept hearing all the needles falling off. This is the aftermath of trying to take the tree out the front door without dropping too many needles (the main pile by the tree stand has about 3 inches of needles):



On February 14th, Mom taught up on Camano Island and on the 15th in Lynden. We stayed at our previous pastor’s house in Birch Bay on the night of the 14th. Pastor Pete and his wife, Jo, were at our church while I was growing up and Pastor Pete’s last Sunday at our church was the day that I made Public Profession of Faith. We love to visit them every chance we get and always hope for decent weather when we’re at their house. They have a great view from the house and thankfully on this trip we had decent weather. We were able to enjoy some great views, great talks, and just some great down time enjoying our visit with them. Here’s a great view of Puget Sound looking towards the right from their house:



While we were sitting around having lunch, we noticed an eagle flying around. This isn’t that great of picture, but by the time I ran to grab my camera, the eagle was flying away. This view is looking towards the left from their house:



The best view of all is straight out their window. Here’s some great shots of Mt. Baker, including some early evening photos and some with my zoom lens (you can see Birch Bay in some of the pictures):











Spring was in the air in late February (one of our first crocuses):



A few weeks later, Mom taught in Canada and we woke up one morning to this view of snow out the window:



This year all of our plants and flowers seem to be coming up earlier than normal. My favorite flower is the tulip and thankfully I'm 3/4 Dutch and Mom loves them too, so we have a lot of them in the yard. We bought some new tulips last year when we were down at my brother’s and they were the first tulips to come up this year. I thought these were some pretty cool photos:







These are just some of the pictures of God’s great Creation. To see the greatness of the mountains, to the beauty of the eagle, to the tiny frog, and the beautiful flowers, is just an awesome testament to God’s power and his love for even the tiny things.